Thursday, June 9, 1921
If the truth was always written on tombstones, the most frequent legend that would appear among the hic jackets of the dead would be the short and simple annal: “He could not stand prosperity.”
The only prosperity that does any good is that which comes so slowly that the receiver is not aware of it. In West Virginia, the most common form of the destroying avalanche of riches comes to landowners who have struck oil on their lands. In the most instances, the sudden riches have destroyed them. Here we have not struck oil as yet, but the possibility is ever present lurking in the background of the imagination, and without exception landowners think that if oil brought them sudden wealth, it would be a blessing. As a matter of fact, the most of them would go to the devil as fast as a horse can travel.
Men who live happy, industrious, useful, contented lives, have been changed into sulky, sullen, vicious pleasure seekers, and they perish.
Jack London has a book written around the subject about a millionaire who travelled all the gaits and experienced all the evil of great riches and then who lost it all and went to work on a farm, and got back some measure of peace and contentment. Then one day when he was puttering around on the farm, he uncovered a great vein of gold and saw in sight riches greater than he had ever known. He must have been some sort of a philosopher, for he covered up the gold carefully so that his family could know nothing about it and went on with his work…
This generation is not organized to seek pleasure but it allows each individual to form his own plans and there is a condition of affairs in which each and every person has a plan to secure for himself a certain amount of pleasure. As a usual course, in the first half of his life he chases around after pleasure and never quite catches up with it. Then he takes a sober second thought, and in the last half of his life, he sits still and pleasure comes to him…
There is no question that a Sunday of self-denial makes Monday more endurable. The old time Scotch considered everything that gave pleasure to be sinful…
Anyway, anybody who ever tried giving his entire time to pleasure-seeking knows that there is nothing in it but poverty, disease, prison and death.
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On last Saturday, the city of Pueblo, Colorado, was about washed away by a series of floods in the Arkansas River. There was a great loss of life and much property destroyed. Pueblo is the home of Mrs. Mary Ellen Sheets Burns, a daughter of the late John Will Sheets, of this county, No word has been received from her since the flood.
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Sheriff B. B. Beard and Constable Ashford made a raid on the home of H. S. Woolridge, at Thornwood, last Thursday morning, and caught Woolridge in the act of making moonshine. He had a complete outfit and was doing business on the kitchen stove. The still is a copper box that holds six or eight gallons, with a cap and a worm. Nine quart jars of corn liquor as clear as spring water was also brought to town.
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This week is published the delinquent list, and it is an unusually short one. Sheriff Beard and his force are to be congratulated on this showing. Some unfeeling persons remarked that the list would have been shorter but we got back to normalcy too soon.
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Some evil disposed person went to the home of Bruno Morrison, near Buckeye, on Monday and smashed things up generally with an axe. Mr. Morrison lives by himself and was at work on Elk at the time. As soon as he was notified he sent for blood hounds, but the trail was so old that no scent could be taken up.
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Jasper D. Dilley reports what is, perhaps by far, the largest sarvis tree in these woods. It stands on Lester Shrader’s farm in the Huntersville District on Browns Mountain. The measurements are 8 feet 2 1/2 inches in circumference a foot from the ground. At the place the first limb comes out, it measure 7 feet, 7 inches around. The first limb is 5 feet, 7 1/2 inches in circumference. It is a tall tree, fifty or more feet in height, appears to be as sound as a dollar, and bears much fruit in its season.
The measurements were taken by Cecil Dilley and Charles Elliott, and the tree still stands to show for itself. As a general thing, the sarvis is more of a bush rather than a tree, and one more than six or eight inches in diameter is the exception.
BIRTH
Born to Mr. and Mrs. William Cackley, at Millpoint, June 6, 1921, a daughter.
MARRIED
May 20, 1921, Clowney Edgar McCoy and Miss Mamie Jackson at the Methodist parsonage.
May 25, 1921, Dennis B. Cloonan and Miss Virgie M. Taylor.
May 25, 1921, Thomas Frank Mann and Miss Annie Shafer.
May 28, 1921, Clyde Leonard Gillispie and Mill Flossie Gladys Sutpin, at the home of William Darnell.
June 4, 1921, Lyle Winters Hultz and Miss Ina Lester Lewis, at the parsonage.
June 2, 1921, William Kennicutte and Miss Nellie Arbogast.
June 3, 1921, John R. Sampson and Miss Viola V. Alderman.
DEATHS
Grace, the little five year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Noah Bright, died Monday morning after a short illness of membranous croup.
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Eileen McNeill, the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Locke McNeill, was buried Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock in the McNeill cemetery. She was two years, three months and twenty-six days old. Rev. F. B. Wyand of the Methodist Church, this city, was in charge of the services. The family extends their thanks to the friends and neighbors for their kindness during the illness and death.